Subject: Euthanasia Foe Discusses Victory in AK Assisted Suicide Case
Source: The Anchorage Press; October 3rd Edition

Euthanasia Foe Discusses Victory in AK Assisted Suicide Case

Anchorage, AK -- The Alaska Supreme Court issued its decision in the Kevin
Sampson and Jane Doe vs. State of Alaska case challenging Alaska's ban on
assisted suicide September 21. The plaintiffs wanted to make it legal for
their physician to prescribe a lethal dose of medication for them to end
their lives.

The State of Alaska argued that it has an interest in protecting the lives
of people who may be vulnerable to choose suicide against their will. The
Court affirmed a Superior Court ruling making it illegal for a physician
to prescribe lethal doses of medication for their patients.

Duane French, co-founder of Not Dead Yet Alaska, along with Jim Beck,
presented an Amicus Brief presented to address the concerns of Alaskans
with disabilities. Not Dead Yet is opposed to assisted suicide because
people with disabilities could be pressured into choosing assisted
suicide.

A quadriplegic himself, we spoke to Mr. French on the effects of this
decision.

Question: This is a life and death decision for many people in Alaska.
Why haven't we heard more about this_

Mr. French: People avoid talking about, or thinking about death unless
they absolutely have to. I think that causes the media to be cautious
about spending too much time discussing it unless it is sensationalized.

Personally, I believe that Anchorage's daily newspaper supports the cause
of assisted suicide and wants to keep the discussion narrowed between it
being a "progressive" public policy issue vs. a religious perspective on
death and dying. They don't want people to know that this is an issue for
people with disabilities, who generally support progressive public policy,
that prejudice against people with disabilities will make them vulnerable
to pressure to choose assisted suicide.

Question: If assisted suicide were made legal do you really think people
with disabilities would be given lethal doses of medication even though
they're not terminally ill_

Mr. French: Yes. In the Dutch experience people with disabilities die by
the thousands and many of them did not request to die. These deaths are
cited in the Remmelink Report on Euthanasia in the Netherlands. Right to
die advocates say the Oregon Report is a better gauge, but I think they
are wrong. Oregon has no agency charged with making sure their assisted
suicide law is followed without abuse. In Oregon assisted suicide is done
on the "honor system" where doctors self-report.

Question: Do you think doctors are going to report that they went a
little beyond the law and offed a quad_ No, they figure no one monitors
assisted suicide and they give them the prescription for enough drugs to
kill a horse. It is the wink-and-a-nod approach done everywhere even when
assisted suicide is not legal.

Mr. French: The doctor says, "Here are two weeks worth of pain pills,
don't take them all at once or you'll die."

Question: Are there cases in America where a doctor has used assisted
suicide to end the life of a person with a disability_

Mr. French: Yes, Jack Kavorkian is the best example. About half of the
people he helped to die were people with disabilities. Jack wanted to be
the right-to-die poster boy, but when right-to-die folks distanced
themselves from him, he decided to be a martyr. Government agencies in
most states don't have the infrastructure in place to police doctors to
make sure abuses are not happening now, and Oregon proves they won't if
assisted suicide is legalized. The only way to get assisted suicide
legislation passed is if you can prove it is cost neutral. It's only cost
neutral if you don't spend any money to police it to make sure abuses
aren't taking place.

Question: Do you think this is the end of assisted suicide in Alaska_

Mr. French: I wish it were, but I doubt it. Compassion in Dying may try
to get the legislature to make it legal, but I think they are smart enough
to know this legislature is not likely to support such a bill. They may
take the ballot initiative route, but the timing is not great if America
is at war in the next year or so. During a time of war people want to
focus on life, not death.

Euthanasia in the Netherlands

The Remmelink Report on Euthanasia in the Netherlands found that in 8,000
cases, treatment was withheld or withdrawn with the intent of shortening
life. There were 1,000 cases revealed by the survey in which doctors had
euthanised a patient without the patient's request and many of those were
people with disabilities. According to the Report, doctors admitted to
intending to shorten life in almost 20,000 cases. The Survey found that
the guidelines set by the Royal Dutch Medical Association was regularly
breached, particularly by failures to report cases of euthanasia to legal
authorities as a non-natural death.

Kevin Sampson and Jane Doe were mentally competent, terminally ill adults
who sued to have their physicians exempt from Alaska's manslaughter
statute so they could assist them to commit suicide. The Superior Court
ruled against Sampson and Doe, and they appealed. The Alaska Supreme Court
affirms the judgment of the Superior Court, concluding that the Alaska
Constitution's guarantees of privacy and liberty do not afford terminally
ill patients the right to a physician's assistance in committing suicide
and that Alaska's manslaughter statute did not violate Sampson and Doe's
right to equal protection.